


Proving Ground

by ahimsabitches



Category: Oliver & Company (1988)
Genre: F/M, Meeting the Family, sykes is the youngest of six god help him, this isn't the golden girls but it is the golden girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 08:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17220803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahimsabitches/pseuds/ahimsabitches
Summary: This is a Christmas gift to a dear friend. Angela is her OC.





	Proving Ground

“Be fuckin' _nice_ , y'all,” Helen said, her hand on the doorknob. “Especially _you,_ Pam.” 

Pam glared over her wine glass.

Helen slapped a wide, welcoming smile on her face and pulled the door open. “Hey, Billy,” she said, then actually  _looked_ at him. “God, you've been in New York too long. You look like a goddamn mob boss,” she chuckled, and hugged his thick neck. The young woman beside him unsuccessfully stifled a laugh.

“Har har.” He shot her a good-natured glare over his bifocals and glanced beside him. “Helen, this is Angela. Ange, this is my oldest sister Helen.”

“Angela, it's a pleasure, hon,” Helen said, and shook her hand. Her grip was strong and steady.

“Likewise,” Angela said, her diamond teardrop earrings catching the warm yellow lamplight from inside.

Helen regarded Angela with a twist of sardonic doubt that she managed to keep off her face. Slim and tall, she wore a pair of high-waisted jeans that showed off her hips and ass and a black satin jacket that did absolutely nothing to hide her generous cleavage. Her dark brown curls cascaded down her shoulders and her lips and cheeks, rouged with makeup and the chill of the evening, couldn't have been more perfect if they'd been sculpted from marble. And Helen doubted Angela had bought those diamond earrings herself.

The poor girl was  _stunning_ , and didn't look a day over twenty-five. Helen flicked her eyes back to Billy, a fucking  _lugnut_ of a fifty-five-year-old, going to fat and bald, with his mother's witchy nose, his father's emotional range, and  _way_ too much faith in his own charisma for anybody's good.

Oh well. He was her baby brother, and she loved him even if she didn't trust him as far as Angela could throw him. “C'mon in, y'all,” she said, backing into the house.

“Hey Billy,” Sophia called from the living room, the edges of her already pronounced drawl stretched out by wine.

“Hope you guys managed to save a few swallows of wine from Charybdis over there,” Bill said to Helen, loud enough for Sophia to hear.

“Fuck you,” Sophia cackled.

Bill took Angela's jacket off her shoulders in a chivalric gesture that tugged strangely at Helen's heart and ushered them both into the living room, where the rest of the aging Sykes clan waited.

Helen opened her arms, indicating the five women seated on a couch and three overstuffed chairs. “Formal introductions: I'm Helen, the oldest, and Sophia is third--”

Sophia, dressed in her finest cat-hair sweater, raised her wine glass.

“--Barb's closest to Billy—”

Her hair still more brown than silver, Barbara smiled primly at them from the couch.

“--Terri's between Barb and Soph--”

Beside Barb, Terri raised her hand in a wave. The well-worn leather jacket she wore creaked.

“--and Pam's second, closest to me--”

Pam only glared at them both from between her shoulderpads. Her grey bangs reminded Helen of a knifeblade.

“And this is our mother, the master of taking no shit, Sarah Sykes.” Helen indicated their mother, straightbacked but small in the leather wingback that used to belong to their father.

“Make yourself at home, Angela,” their mother drawled, “for as long as you can stand to be around all us old bastards.” Her cataracted eyes nearly disappeared behind veils of wrinkles as she smiled.

A ripple of laughter flowed across the room.

“Ma,” Helen scolded.

“I've had plenty of practice being around old bastards,” Angela said, nudging Bill, who rolled his eyes.

“Billy, c'mere and hug your fuckin' mama, dammit,” she said, holding out her thin, shawl-draped arms.

Bill obediently went to her and Helen marveled that their mother's entire torso wasn't as big around as Billy's thigh. She blinked and turned to Angela. “Would you like some wine, hon?”

The young woman grinned. “I'd kill a man for a good dry Riesling.”

Helen smiled. She liked the girl, despite herself. “Lemme save you the effort,” and headed into the kitchen.

“You sure you're old enough to drink it?” Pam asked, her voice dripping with derision.

Irritation blew through Helen. She opened her mouth to snap.

“Give me a bottle and find out,” Angela quipped.

Helen snorted a laugh and continued into the kitchen. She _definitely_ liked this one better than the one Billy'd brought home before her. Clearly, since she couldn't remember the woman's name. There had been several of them after Susan had left him, all young, none of them worth much more than the names attached to their shoes, clothes, and hair, as if Billy'd been afraid to go after what he'd really wanted: a woman like Susan, with wit, class, and charm. And a fucking _brain._

Soph cackled. “I like her!”

“Do you? Y'all might have to fight each other for the wine,” Terri said.

“I hope it doesn't come to that,” Angela said, flapping one hand dismissively and accepting the glass Helen handed to her with the other. “Thank you,” she said to Helen, and turned back to Terri. “But if I can bring a purse-snatcher down with a stiletto to the crotch, I think I can hold my own in a battle of the winos.”

“Looks like you got your work cut out for ya, sweetpea,” their mother said, trying to sip whiskey around a grin that showed both sets of dentures.

“That's my girl,” Billy said and looped a meaty arm around her hips.

Helen lay a hand on his shoulder. “Drink?”

“You got Scotch?” He asked.

She shook her head. “We got the Thomasons' strawberry moonshine and Jim Beam.”

Angela, between them, blinked at Helen. “That kinda sounds like a lipstick.”

Bill chuckled, the sound rolling in his cavernous chest. “It's awful. Bad-decision juice.”

“You can take the Sykeses out of the South...” Helen said and shrugged.

“Since when was any alcoholic beverage _not_ bad-decision juice for you, _Billy?_ ” Angela said, tugging Bill's tie playfully.

Laughter, louder, bloomed in the living room. “ _Never_ ,” three of his sisters said in unison.

 


End file.
